


To the Marrow

by Siolia



Category: RG Veda (Manga)
Genre: Adopted Children, Alternate Universe - Police, Conspiracy, Crime Fighting, Modern Era, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 15:49:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21164165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siolia/pseuds/Siolia
Summary: Police Captain Yasha of Northern Precinct 1 has stumbled on a case of illegal dumping, but when he goes to check it out, he meets Kujaku, a blogger who has his nose in all the rumors and happenings of the city.  He knows Yasha, too, and the truth of the child he keeps with him.  Kujaku offers to work with Yasha, wanting to cleanse the city of the corrupt officials, but Yasha knows that this is a situation way over his head and might do more harm than good.





	To the Marrow

_Tenkai, a sprawling city full of peace and joy. It is a melting pot of cultures and a wellspring of opportunity. This mosaic of life is held together by the strong, unforgiving Commissioner Taishakuten and the police majors known as the ‘Four Generals’. With an unprecedented arrest record and a skyrocketing approval rating, what secrets could there possibly be hiding in this city? It’s simple. Where there is light, there are shadows. It’s my job, my responsibility, to bring these secrets to the surface._

_It’s a pleasure to meet you all, and welcome to my blog: Third Eye._

_~Stargazer_

Police Captain Yama Yasha of northern precinct scrolled through the blog, occasionally glancing at the detective in front of him. He was a recent hire, young and full of energy. So, Yasha was often presented with ridiculous “conspiracies” like this one. Still, as he read through some of the entry titles, he couldn’t dismiss the fact that they were eerily detailed.

“Why are you bringing this to me?” He asked.

“Read the last entry, sir!”

Yasha went back to the latest article:

** _Strange Miasma from the Woods_ **

_An eerie fog has been seen rolling out of the Maya Wood lately. Hikers have been feeling dizzy and falling ill after hiking the trails, and there have been reports of mysterious, whispering voices. You might be thinking, ghosts! But, lucky for you, dear readers, I’m here to assuage your supernatural fears. I’m sorry to say, however, the truth won’t do much to make you feel better._

_Vans from Shura Corp., the leading medical research corporation in Tenkai known for its antipsychotic medication Shurato, have been seen entering and leaving the forest at least twice a week for the last month. Coincidentally, this is when the rumors about the fog began. It is my theory that they’re dumping chemical wastes in the river there, the reaction from the water and the chemical creating fog and the worker’s chit-chat the whispers from the trees._

_Tonight would be their regularly scheduled dumping, so I will follow them and confirm with my own eyes this activity. Pictures included._

_Look forward to the results!_

_~Stargazer_

Yasha looked back at the detective, “What do you want me to do about this?”

“Isn’t this illegal? The Maya Wood is in our jurisdiction.”

Yasha rolled his eyes, “Well, no real crime has been reported. This is just a theory.”

The detective looked deflated and left Yasha’s office. Yasha continued to scroll through the blog. Most, if not all, of Stargazer’s predictions and theories have turned out to be true, from the rumors of mole people that turned out to be a cult squatting in an abandoned subway tunnel to the identity of the serial killer in the ‘disappearing castle’ who had eluded the police and mysteriously disappeared. He bookmarked the page as a resource and returned to work.

The hours whittled away and finally it was time to return home. Ashura would be waiting for him, and he couldn’t wait to see their darling smile. But, as he was locking up his office, the thought of the mysterious fog and the hikers falling ill returned to the front of his mind. Maybe he could swing by, just in case.

\-----

Yasha parked his car outside the woods and set the alarm. There was no sign of the Shura Corp. vans, but they probably drove closer to the dumpsite. There was another car there, a nice, white one. He recognized the model as a hybrid. Just in case, he noted the plates and then went in.

He didn’t hear anything except the shifting of dirt and leaves under his shoes. The moon was bright enough he didn’t need a flashlight right away. And, as he got further down the trail, the moon helped to distinguish when the fog rolled in. Remembering the sick hikers, he pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and held it over his mouth and nose, continuing towards the river.

A faint whirring rose above the clouds, like machinery, and he followed the noise. He made sure to step slowly and quietly, so they wouldn’t hear him and chase him out. When he finally saw some lights, he stopped near a tree and planned his approach. The river was in front of him, and he saw he was upstream of the dumpsite, so he pulled out his phone and cautiously followed the flow towards the lights.

Soon, he heard the voices: muffled and male. They were laughing, no doubt passing the time by telling jokes to each other. He opened the camera app on his phone and veered a little bit to the left, ducking behind trees but staying within eyesight of the river. Finally, he could see the outlines of their suits and hulking shadows of their vans.

It turned out that the chemicals were only causing the smell. They had brought various fog machines to cover their actions and hooked them up to portable batteries. The chemicals themselves were contained in large barrels that they were dumping into the river, unconcerned by the fact they could be poisoning a lot of people. And, now that he was close enough, he could read the Shura Corp. logo on the side of the white vans.

Shura Corp., a massive pharmaceutical company with its headquarters based in Tenkai. Their biggest product was their antipsychotic drug, Shurato, which was the most widely used in the city and had very few and easy to manage side effects. However, the production of the drug was costly. The previous CEO of Shura Corp., Takehiro Ashura, was a friend of the mayor and a man of honor, and he tried to keep his products as affordable as he could. But, his way of doing business nearly brought the company to ruins. In the end, he died under mysterious circumstances.

Ashura’s wife, Shashi, inherited the company. Unlike her husband, she was a ruthless woman. She downsized the business harshly, cutting staff and equipment to the bare minimum in an effort to reduce their expenditures. Also, she started changing the formulas to use cheaper ingredients. The downside to this was the ingredients she used created a massive amount of byproduct. And now, Yasha could see how she handled their disposal.

A rustling caught Yasha’s attention, and he looked up into the tree he was hiding behind. There was a man in the branches, holding a fancy camera. He was wearing a white hoodie, a smart choice to blend into the fog, Yasha had to admit. His head was ducked, staring into the viewfinder to get the best pictures. Yasha was reminded of what he was doing here and quickly returned to his phone. He zoomed out to capture the whole scene and clicked the shutter button.

_Flash_.

He froze. The man above him gasped. Even the men dumping the chemicals stopped talking. Yasha quickly ducked behind the tree and started dialing. When the dispatcher picked up, he heard the men shouting. They must have spotted the man in the tree before him.

“What’s your emergency?”

He explained the situation, asking for backup because he knew the men would flee. And, right on cue, he heard the vans pull out. When he poked his head out from behind the tree, he saw they had left the fog machines behind but took the barrels. They didn’t have time to take everything. Knowing which streets were likely the ones they’d take, he gave their general direction to the dispatcher and then hung up to wait for the first responders.

“Hey!” The man above him nimbly dropped down from his perch. He was pissed. “How could you not tell that your flash was on? I heard you on the phone. You’re a captain? What the hell did you do to become a captain if you can’t even work your phone?”

Now, Yasha had a better view of him. Obviously, this man was “Stargazer”, but he was older than he’d thought. He had expected a teenager or a young man, but this man looked about his age if a few years younger. Even through the baggy clothes, he could tell the man was slender, somewhat gangly, and Yasha was very tall, but this man was only a few inches shorter than him, reaching around his chin. His hair was medium length and a poisonous black with creeping bangs, but it grew a little bit longer around his neck, enough to be tied back in a small ponytail for exercises like this one. The most striking thing about him, Yasha noticed, was that his dark eyes had a certain sheen to them. It was dim in the fog, but he could have sworn they were purple. Then again, who was he to judge? People often told him that when he was angry, his eyes looked feral and red.

The man continued to talk in Yasha’s silence, “Yama Yasha, though. You’re pretty famous. Upstanding morals, plenty of awards, and a high arrest record for your youth. And, you have a lot of important friends. Not to mention, I heard you took in Shura Corp.’s dirty little secret.”

“Shut up.” It was Yasha’s turn to be pissed. He fixed the young man in front of him with a threatening glare.

“The secret younger child of Takehiro Ashura, named after their father. I suppose you could call them Ashura Junior, but without the senior around, Ashura should be fine. Right?”

Yasha continued to glare at him, and still he chatted away, “Thrown away by their mother to stop inheritance disputes. Her first child was illegitimate, after all, born from an affair with everyone’s most feared police commissioner, and then after Ashura Sr. died, she married him while still pregnant with Sr.’s child. What juicy gossip!”

The man shook his head, “Hardly anyone knows they exist. It’s probably for the better, I think, or else they’d lead a very unfortunate life as the constant nexus of rumors and maybe even assassination attempts.”

“What are you getting at?” Yasha’s hand was balled up tight into a fist, ready to swing at the first sign of trouble.

“You probably hate them a lot,” he said. “The commissioner and Shashi Ashura. We could destroy them. What we just saw today was the tip of the iceberg. Their sins run deep, into the very marrow of Tenkai, and I want to purge it all. Aren’t you tired of the spinning wheel of destiny? The false sense of security, governed by fear and lies? Ashura Sr. was your friend, and you know that what happened to him was a crime. One that went unpunished. You and I, Yasha, we could make that happen, and we can knock this wheel off its course. Tenkai will be made better for it.”

Yasha heard the police sirens in the distance. He looked at the stranger dubiously, “I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m Stargazer, but you know that already, don’t you? Or else you wouldn’t be here right now.” He held out his hand, “You can call me Kujaku.”

Yasha shook Kujaku’s hand, and the man winked at him, “I’ll catch you later.”

“What?”

Before he could do anything to stop him, Kujaku took off running and disappeared into the trees. Yasha stared at his hand. He knew Kujaku was a fake name, but something about it begged to be accepted at face value. He would trust him for now. After all, he went through all the trouble to expose Shura Corp.’s illegal dumping and even after spouting all the details behind Ashura’s origin, he didn’t say anything about trying to blackmail him. Still, did he want to be caught up in something that was clearly over his head? It would only put Ashura in danger.

After giving his statement (including about meeting Kujaku because he wasn’t going to let that slide), Yasha finally went home. Ashura was still awake and waiting for him, running up to him as soon as he came in the door. “Yasha!” They didn’t use nicknames here. Yasha felt it would have been unfair to Ashura Sr.

“Hello, Ashura,” Yasha smiled at them, picking them up and hugging them. “What are you still doing awake?”

“Waiting for you.” A woman with long, curling hair said. She was Ashura’s babysitter, Gigei. They had met through Ashura, who had gotten separated from him during a shopping trip. Gigei ran a dance studio that was quite famous, and she’d even made appearances on national television. Ashura wanted to learn to dance from her, so she picks them up after school and keeps them with her in her studio until Yasha could pick them up. After a while, though, as Yasha became steadily busier, he had given Gigei a key to their home and he had been meeting them there instead.

“You’re later than usual,” she said. “What happened?”

“I caught someone dumping illegally. Shura Corp.”

“That’s not surprising,” she said. Gigei was a woman of great character, strong-willed and a fierce fighter. Yasha admired her and was glad that Ashura saw her as a role model. “You know they’re going to get away scot-free right?”

Yasha nodded grimly, absently stroking Ashura’s hair. The child looked between them, “What about me?”

“It’s not you, it just sounds like your name,” Gigei explained.

“Well, if they’re the bad guys, then Yasha will catch them.” Ashura looked up at Yasha with their eyes shining and gold, like the sun. “Yasha makes sure all the bad guys get punished.”

“Not these guys,” Gigei muttered under her breath, “Assholes.”

“That’s not fair,” Ashura complained, tapping Yasha’s arm to be let down. Yasha set them down, and they approached Gigei, “How come they don’t get to be punished?”

She clearly hadn’t meant to be heard and struggled for an answer, “Sometimes, even the good guys are just pretending, and they’re actually bad. They help their bad guy friends escape.”

“Yasha’s not like that. Yasha will catch them too, right?” Ashura looked over their shoulder at him.

Kujaku’s words returned to the surface. Tenkai would be better for it. Maybe they could do this. Ashura Sr. would get his justice, and the city could become safer for Ashura, without Yasha having to conceal their identity. Ashura waited expectantly for his answer.

“I’ll catch them,” he said.

Ashura smiled brightly, “I knew you would!”

Gigei could tell he was thinking about something and tapped his shoulder on the way out, “Just be careful, Mr. Hero. I don’t want to see Ashura on the news.”

Once she was gone, Yasha took Ashura’s hand and guided them inside, “Come on. You need to get to bed.”

“You too, Yasha!”


End file.
